Kieran Trippier has hailed England captain Harry Kane as “a winner”, insisting he learns something every day from the striker.
Kane has repeatedly impressed for the Three Lions, and has Wayne Rooney’s all-time goal record of 53 in his sights, potentially during this tournament, but faced criticism of his performance in the draw with USA and even calls for him to be dropped.
Gareth Southgate was never going to drop his captain with a knockout stage spot yet to be confirmed, and Trippier underlined his former Tottenham team-mate’s impact on the squad.
“It says everything about Harry [that he always wants to play],” Trippier added. “I’ve been lucky enough to play with him for club and country and I’ve always said it. He’s one of the best professionals I’ve played with. The main leader in our group.
“Everybody wants to play every game and so does Harry. He is a winner, he wants to win and do his country proud. He does want to play every game but that is up to Harry.
“Harry behind the scenes, the way he conducts himself and leads by example, especially with the team we’ve got, and the young players, they look up to him and watch him: how he trains, how he recovers, how he prepares for games.
“And there’s no one better to watch, even now I’m still watching him every day and learning stuff from him every day because I look up to him as well.”
Along with the unlikely dropping of Kane, fans have also called for Phil Foden to start, which is more likely, while Standard Sport understands Jordan Henderson will replace the impressive Jude Bellingham in the line-up.
With one point needed to qualify for the last 16 stage, Trippier says the team will continue to follow the manager over the court of public opinion.
He continued: “It’s opinions and everyone is entitled to them but us, as players, we know what we need to do, we know we can go up a few more levels, of course, but it’s all opinions and everyone is entitled to them.
“Of course, they’re all behind us, they all want us to do well but again everyone has their opinion about how we are playing but again that’s their opinion.
“All we can do as players is listen to the manager, work hard on the training ground and try to put things right in the next game. That’s all we can do as players.
“Of course, we need to be more clinical, we need to get more chances. We go into that game to win, of course we do, but we can’t score six goals every game. It was a positive result, it was a point on the board and now we go into the Wales game with that winning mentality - that’s a given.”
Trippier should keep his spot at right-back, given his threat both at the back and at set-pieces. There is yet to be a free kick scored at this year’s World Cup, and the Newcastle man feels that the lighter Adidas-designed Al Rihla ball may have had an impact.
Although he hasn’t taken free-kicks himself, the Three Lions full-back played and trained with the new ball that was described by Adidas as “the fastest and most accurate FIFA World Cup ball to date.”
That speed, in Trippier’s mind, might make it fly away too easily when overhit: “Every time I’ve crossed the ball I’ve felt the balls are a bit different but there are no excuses really.
“It’s just... I feel it’s a bit lighter. It feels like if you put too much power on it, it’ll just fly away but, yeah, it’s one of them where we have to deal with that, all of us do. We train with the same ones. It’s a football, isn’t it?! I would just say the balls are a bit different but it is not the heat or anything.”
